Hellhole

by Kevin J. Anderson

  But not yet.

  Always attuned to his moods, Sophie had watched his sadness increase for days. She knew what this date meant for the General, his close friends, and his failed hopes. She touched his arm, asking softly, “Are you sure you don’t want me there with you?”

  “Not for this. Not tonight.”

  Before she returned to her own residence in town, she left him a bottle of her best wine. He accepted the bottle, kissed her goodbye, and then sent his staff away. Alone in his study, Adolphus removed the cork and poured a glass of the rich Cabernet, letting it breathe as he sat back and stared into his memories.

  The Adolphus family had once been important nobles on the Crown Jewel planet Qiorfu, whose prominence and wealth had declined over the generations. The Lubis Plain shipyards were the planet’s largest source of income – a dumping ground where damaged or decommissioned ships from the Constellation space navy were fixed, stored, or dismantled for scrap and parts.

  A century earlier, the Adolphus family had subcontracted the Lubis Plain operations to the Riomini family, which was like letting a hungry predator into a livestock pen. The ambitious Riominis had consolidated and expanded the base of operations, becoming the primary employers on Qiorfu.

  Tiber Adolphus was the second son of Jacob, an old respected patriarch who liked to tend his olive groves on the grassy hills that overlooked the bustling industrial expanse of Lubis Plain. Stefano, the older son, was the natural heir, but Jacob planned to split the Adolphus holdings between his two children, as many noble families had done for generations. Their mother was a quiet woman who spent most of her time in a studio in the manor house, writing poetry thousands of lines long, which she never allowed anyone to read; she spent very little time with her boys.

  Stefano, though, picked at the division of the territory, trying to mince up and draw lines around structures and plots of land that were of particular interest to him, pressuring their father to shift the boundaries in a complex gerrymandered map. Tiber became frustrated with his brother’s pettiness: whenever he made concessions, Stefano found something else to object to. The quarrel degenerated until Tiber concluded that his brother would never be satisfied.

  Seeing how distraught the conflict was making their old father, Tiber decided to relinquish all interest in the property. Subdividing their Qiorfu holdings would only weaken the Adolphus family, so he signed over his entire inheritance to Stefano. Tiber supplied a legal document forsaking his claim to the family wealth and signed up for service in the Constellation military. It was traditional for planetary rulers to get rid of their “extra inheritors” by enrolling them in officer training to start them on military careers.

  There, Tiber found himself surrounded by numerous second, third, and fourth sons of waning noble families; he and his fellows jokingly called themselves the “second-string nobles.” The ever-increasing surplus of high-level personnel had bloated the space navy. Due to special-interest lobbying, the Constellation had constructed hundreds of unnecessary FTL starships for its military and created countless irrelevant positions and an attendant bureaucracy. It became a thriving, noxious weed that no one could uproot.

  Tiber scored well in the intense training at the military academy. After growing up near the Lubis Plain shipyards, he was already familiar with most ship configurations and knew many soldiers personally. An intelligent and talented man with a keen eye for tactics, he quickly began to make his mark and received numerous increases in rank.

  Then he received word that Stefano had died on Qiorfu from an allergic reaction to medicine. Suddenly Tiber was the sole heir to the Adolphus family fortunes, and though he was a rising star in the military with a clear promotion path, he resigned his commission, bade farewell to his comrades, and rushed back to Qiorfu to take up his new responsibilities and comfort his devastated father. His mother had retreated even further into her poetry.

  Once back home, though, he learned the insidious subtleties of Constellation law. Over the years, ambitious noble families – the Riominis, Tazaars, Craises, and Hirdans – had passed seemingly innocuous legislation that prevented a noble son from reclaiming his inheritance once he had relinquished it. Tiber was told there was nothing he could do.

  But he knew his cause was just, so he fought, this time via the judicial system. Tiber pleaded his case before the Supreme Magistrate on Sonjeera, and was appalled when the court dismissed it. “The law is clear, young man. Accept it.”

  Using new attorneys, Adolphus appealed and lost again. He then took his case to the public, but engendered little sympathy; the other nobles brushed it aside, for his family had minimal influence, and the common people didn’t care about the inflated problems of the nobility. The Riominis administered the Lubis Plain shipyards with exceptional efficiency, and the Black Lord had a very powerful propaganda machine.

  Back home, old Jacob Adolphus was weary, broken by the loss not only of his eldest son, but the loss of his family wealth and prestige. His mother’s hair had gone very gray, and she ate dinner with them, but rarely said a word. With no other prospects, Tiber left home again and reapplied for military service, but because of his absence and because he had shown himself to be a “troublemaker,” he entered two steps below the rank he had held before.

  Since the Constellation navy had so many spaceships and so little to do, many vessels were given busy-work assignments, usually involving scientific matters that would not otherwise have been funded. Tiber found himself running a small long-range FTL scoutship with a crew of seventy. Built for espionage and reconnaissance, it was now assigned to astronomy duty. They were dispatched with orders to study a well-cataloged and predictable nova that was due to flare up. Adolphus’s ship would be there to observe the event.

  As a student of military history and tactics, Tiber had a passing interest in astronomy and he was pleased to be in command of even a small vessel. The Constellation military gave them a precise time and location for the predicted nova, which puzzled him: if the astronomy was so well understood, why send a survey ship and crew to observe the event?

  His first officer was Franck Tello, the second son of a weak noble family, who had turned to the Constellation military like so many other second-string nobles. Tello was a good-natured young man who loved his family and understood his position, missed his home planet of Cherby but accepted the fact that he would have to go wherever he was sent.

  Once Tiber and his crew got to know one another better, he realized that his entire ship was filled with surplus family members from the weakest noble families; every single crewman was a second or third son of an already dissipated family – someone who cluttered the inheritance chain.

  The scout ship took up its position very close to the binary star, dispatched their detectors, and prepared to wait. The two tightly orbiting stars danced around each other, the blue dwarf siphoning star gases from the red giant until enough new material built up to trigger a collapse with a resulting flash of light and radiation. The nova would happen soon.

  Always curious, Tiber studied the unstable system, read reports of previous nova outbursts, and compiled the data. With actual stars in front of him, rather than theoretical descriptions from his astrophysics lessons, he ran the calculations himself, as an exercise.

  And found that the Constellation scientists had provided erroneous information.

  It was a basic mistake, and he rechecked his calculations. He brought in Franck, who came up with the same answer. Adolphus reread his orders, dispatched a question to military headquarters, and received confirmation that yes, his ship was supposed to be in that precise position on that particular date. He was reprimanded for questioning orders.

  The only problem was, when the nova exploded, their location would be squarely in the death zone. Gathering redundant astronomical data should not be a suicide mission. Though loath to disobey a direct command, especially after receiving confirmation from his superiors, he did not intend to let his ship and crew be wiped out beca
use some careless scientist had made a mathematical error.

  A more terrifying thought occurred to him: what if this was not a mistake, after all?

  Franck was the first to suggest a possible conspiracy. “Captain, many of us aboard this vessel happen to be inconvenient members of noble families, and not all have renounced their inheritances, as I did. Wouldn’t some powerful lords consider it fortuitous if this ship and crew were accidentally lost?”

  Adolphus was astounded. His instinct was to disbelieve his first officer, to argue with the very idea of something so dishonorable, but then he remembered how the Supreme Magistrate had so brusquely swept aside his inheritance claims, no doubt because the Riominis wanted all of Qiorfu, not just the shipyards. If he himself were killed in an unfortunate accident during a survey mission, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to help his father hold onto the family estate.

  In his heart Adolphus knew that Franck Tello was right.

  He left a survey buoy with full scientific instrumentation in place and withdrew the scout ship to a safe distance. Though he was technically disobeying orders, the astronomical data would be gathered as requested.

  When the star flared up exactly according to their captain’s calculations and vaporized the survey buoy – where their ship should have been – the second-string nobles were convinced that they had been ordered to their deaths. The Constellation was trying to eliminate them!

  Maintaining communications silence, an outraged Adolphus issued orders to his crew, and the FTL scout ship raced to nearby Cherby, Franck Tello’s home planet. The voyage took two weeks, and they arrived at the planet without announcing themselves, only to discover that all of the Tello family holdings had been taken over by their arch-rivals, the Hirdans. Franck’s older brother had been killed in a “hunting mishap,” and his father chased out of the house, griefstricken by the erroneous news that Franck was dead as well. The new landlords already occupied the family’s great house.

  None of them had intended to start a civil war . . . not then.

  In a rage, Franck armed himself from the scout ship’s weapons lockers and marched into his family home. He gunned down the treacherous Hirdans as they were moving supplies in. Unified by the knowledge that they had all been betrayed, Adolphus’s second-string nobles swept away the remaining usurpers, locked them up, and reinstated the Tellos, claiming Cherby as a reconquered world.

  Fearing that his own planet would face a similar takeover, Adolphus commandeered a group of larger military vessels on Cherby and flew off to Qiorfu. Arriving home, Adolphus discovered that his father had recently, and conveniently, died, and Lord Selik Riomini had already staked his claim to the holdings. His mother had been moved to a very small cottage off the estate, where she was under constant guard. A Riomini military adviser had been installed as the provisional governor, and the Black Lord himself planned to take up residence soon.

  This was the last of many straws for Tiber Adolphus. He and his growing band of malcontents performed a daring raid, took over the Lubis Plain shipyards, and seized a fleet of old but still-functional warships.

  Franck Tello gave a grim smile. “Second-string ships for second-string nobles.”

  In an impromptu ceremony, his men unanimously granted Adolphus the rank of general.

  Thus began the rebellion, on Cherby and Qiorfu. Throughout the military, a large number of second-string nobles – those most likely to be sympathetic to Adolphus’s cause – served as low-level communications officers. When he transmitted his shocking revelations of the Constellation’s treachery, the first people to hear the message were members of at-risk families.

  After rescuing and moving his mother, and setting up a new identity for her, General Adolphus broadcast a passionate and convincing declaration of independence across the Constellation, calling for all second-stringers to rise up against the corrupt system. The initial message sparked spontaneous mutinies on numerous Constellation battleships; some of the crew uprisings succeeded, some failed. But the rebellion was born, and grew.

  Adolphus led a campaign with his FTL ships for five bloody years across multiple systems, engaging in impossible battles, collecting many victories and many defeats. In desperation, Diadem Michella pulled together blueblood officers under the command of Lord Selik Riomini to form the powerful Army of the Constellation. And one of the battlefield commanders was Commodore Percival Hallholme . . .

  Now, on the evening of the anniversary, Adolphus sat in his chair. He picked up the glass of Cabernet, swirled it a little, and raised a silent toast to his heroic men who had died, and to those who remained in exile with him. He took a long, slow sip.

  The wine tasted bitter, but he forced himself to swallow. It was not the grapes, he suspected, but the memories. He drained his glass and spent the rest of the evening alone with his thoughts.

  15

  Captain Escobar Hallholme considered the Adolphus manor house an unpleasant reminder of Qiorfu’s former ruling family. The young officer would have preferred to raze the old mansion from the sloping hillside and build a new residence for himself. But his father insisted that the original structure be preserved for reasons he did not completely explain.

  The old commodore did point out that, although it had been rebuilt, expanded, and redesigned numerous times, the manor house was the ancestral home of a respected family, long before the Constellation Charter was drawn up and signed by the original nobles. Portions of the redstone walls dated back more than two thousand years, and the olive groves carried their own weight of age. The structure held the gravitas of history – and, recently, of treason.

  Escobar didn’t like the place. He didn’t need any reminders of all that history or the part his family had played in it.

  He had just showered and shaved and stood in a thin, blue dressing robe on the second level of the manor house. A silver-service tray sat on a table near him, but he had barely touched his cup of dark, sweet kiafa. His wife had already taken their two children off to their tutors, and he would see them that evening at dinner, but for the time being he had plenty of work to do. That was one of the first lessons both his boys had learned, that their father had important responsibilities here on Qiorfu.

  Fortunately his sons spent much of their time pestering their grandfather, delighted by his war stories. Escobar could not care less about the interminable reminiscences.

  Throwing open a double window, he looked out on a lateral rampart with a guard station perched on it. He noted the ochre weathering of the stones in soft morning light, and in an objective moment, he did appreciate the beauty of the house in an antique sort of way.

  As the ambitious son of the legendary Commodore Percival Hallholme, Escobar had his own military command, albeit a less glorious and fabled one than his father’s – so far. As a Unit Captain, he was in charge of the Lubis Plain shipyards and the company of Riomini troops stationed there. He had even married one of the grand-nieces of Lord Riomini, a charming enough girl with good connections, though they had very little in common. She was a good mother to his sons, however.

  Escobar’s family shared the spacious house with the old man, and thankfully the residence had myriad rooms that each man could use for his own purposes. The room in which Escobar now stood had once been a master suite for the old Adolphus patriarchs. He had converted it to a sitting room where he sometimes conferred with visiting dignitaries. It was a place separate from the messy family areas where the boys were allowed to play.

  Percival Hallholme had been granted the entire estate after his great victory against Adolphus. Situated on a promontory overlooking the plain, the house looked like the prow of a great ship from bygone days. Escobar had to admit that if he squinted, the bluegrass plain stretching into the distance resembled a sea, and the mothballed FTL vessels crowding the expansive yards looked like ships floating on placid water. Some of the old vessels were used for spare parts, but the Diadem insisted that the majority of the ships be maintained in a functional
state as training craft and as a strategic reserve. Just in case . . . though against what, he didn’t know.

  Each time Selik Riomini came to Qiorfu via stringline for an inspection visit, and to give his grand-niece a dutiful peck on the cheek, Escobar asked the Black Lord for more challenging duties. At the academy, Escobar had excelled at making tactical decisions in war maneuvers. He had been trained for action.

  But he was over thirty now, and his career clock was ticking. With light brown hair and pale blue eyes, classical features, and a manner that looked both dashing and competent, he cut a striking military figure. Escobar wanted a chance to earn his own medals instead of riding on his father’s coat-tails. Conceding, perhaps in an effort to keep his grand-niece happy, Lord Riomini had promised him a more exciting assignment. Although there were no current wars or even any local disturbances, the Black Lord had said cryptically, “Be patient. There may be something coming up on Vielinger.”

  Now he heard his father’s distinctive hitching gait as the old man moved along the hallway outside Escobar’s closed door. Even the most advanced doctors could not improve the old man’s limp; Percival’s tissue rejected replacement grafts, and he refused to wear complex prosthetics. His father told a lot of stories about his war years and purported battle injuries, so many tales and in such variation that it was difficult to sort fact from fiction, but Escobar knew a lot of the truth. When they saw the retired Commodore hobbling around in his military uniform, most people assumed the limp was from an injury suffered during the rebellion, but actually it was from a disease. In time, Escobar might show signs of the same degenerative condition, but doctors were already giving him preventive treatments.

  His father tried the door handle. The fool thought he was being surreptitious. Escobar made a habit of activating the locks in this section of the manor house.